(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for remotely monitoring a deployed product, gathering data about the deployed product, and disseminating the data to interested parties. More specifically the present invention is drawn to a system for enabling remote acquisition of visual data via a wireless LAN and internet architecture and interactively making use of such data.
(2) Description of Related Art
There exists in industry dedicated servers forming portals through which communities of users may communicate with one another. Often times, users sharing a common attribute may have partitioned access to subsets of the data contained upon the server. For example, engineers might form a community of users with restricted access to engineering data and may be capable of entering a chat room hosted on the server. When such a portal is in communication via the internet with other servers having unique IP addresses, users of the portal may gain access to servers located around the world.
There also exists a need for individuals or groups of individuals to access information related to various apparatus. For example, aerospace engineers engaged in the design and testing of aircraft engines have a need to receive detailed data related to the condition and performance of engines deployed in the field. In particular, it would be useful to receive detailed visual data related to the condition of an engine or other apparatus and to interactively direct the acquisition of such data. Unfortunately, it is often both time consuming and expensive to gather such data from deployed apparatus.
There therefore exists a need for a system to allow remote users of a portal architecture to gain access, via a network, to devices capable of acquiring visual data related to the condition and performance of deployed apparatus wherever they are located. There additionally exist a need for users of such a system to be able to interactively issue control commands capable of guiding the acquisition of such visual data.